11 January 2006
A widely-used livestock pain killer could endanger the survival of vultures around the world, researchers suggest.
The rapid decline of Indian vulture populations has been blamed on the use of the drug, diclofenac, to treat inflammation in cattle.
A new study for the British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says diclofenac is highly toxic to other vulture species.
It warns they could be poisoned when feeding off contaminated carcasses.
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Deborah Pain, who led the new research, says she has never seen such a rapid decline of any species.
The painkiller diclofenac was soon found to be at fault.
Extremely cheap to buy, it has been widely used in South Asia to treat cattle for conditions like lameness, or mastitis - inflammation of the udder.
The trouble was that vultures were feeding off carcasses of dead, treated animals, and the drug was destroying their kidneys.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4601508.stmThis is very bad news. As nasty as they are, we really don't want to kill off all the vultures. The world will be a much stinkier place without them eating up all our dead stuff.